Madhu reflects on the mysteries of how life changes and asks whether more mutual nourishment is possible here at Sannyas News, given the nature of our core Being.
Winds of change are always blowing, aren´t they?
Sometimes feeling like watching one of these fabulous roses of the desert, which, uprooted, are taken by the winds of change, changing their habitation, waiting a a very dry little knot for a new seasonal habitation…And then, when some humidity, some water shows up, amazingly spreading their leaves in lush green, and staying for another while at one place.
A life born to exactly such conditioning, appearing alive and lush, dark green and then again like some apparently rotten stuff…And one who knows about it knows that Life is just waiting for the interdependent circumstances to fulfil some conditions for showing up again, visibly.
He or she in the human realm may have received some glimpses of knowing the Being aspect, always present yet not always showing up visibly, being almost forgotten…not rarely feeling a threat of death…And in the midst of that as well, not rarely starting war-like scenarios, just to hold on to an identity, imagining a threat from another nearby identity: thereby losing its core issue of consciousness that one is meant to be the way one is (at the core/Being).
My question is whether such a knowing can be established, realised, encouraged amidst the tsunami of virtual waves of information – and information used as a fighting manual, as meanwhile quite often happens here at SN/UK..
My question is:
Can a collective healing take place in a small group like this? Associated with the wise insights a Paracelsus once had, which really deserves a meditation about it.
At the Caravanserai page, you invited, Satyadeva, some input about what is moving us…This – for the moment – is mine from here-to-here.
And you left some remarks there, amongst many others which have been coming. Yours were about one of the many friends of Sannyas (Michael Barnett, formerly Anand Somendra) who departed just very recently.
This question of mine is:
How precious are we for each other? And how can we learn in this virtual Chat to nourish each other in a better way – as long as we are able to write and read in a virtual Chat ?
Madhu,
You ask: “Can a collective healing take place in a small group like this?”
Quite frankly, I would say that if SN was able to facilitate “a collective healing” it would, humble online chat site that it is, be punching well above its weight.
Take it for what it is, a bunch of misfits having a bit of enlightentertainment.
If someone gets healed…
lucky ducky…..
´Collective healing´, Frank, yes, the chosen words may well be ‘punching over the weight’ of an “enlightentertainment” website, as you say it.
And thanks for that feedback.
However – my quite recent impressions have been that contributors have more or less the tendency to circle in ever repetitive (verbal) performances, circling around their own orbit of their main reactive pattern, just giving a shit about other ´entities´ coming up, wanting to join a dance around a topic – and relate!
If relating – neither to a topic nor to other contributors – is not happening, or is just happening in a hostile, factionalising and autistic way, the whole stuff has nothing to do with enlightentertainment, in my view.
Just a word salad then, not very inviting to digest. Nor inviting newcomers to join the chat and contribute; that´s what I tried to point at.
“Bunch of misfits”, you say?
Misfit is a concept too, isn´t it?
And some would fight with sweat and blood not to let go of it (this concept).
Thanks for reminding me in that friendly way, Frank, that my playing with your mother tongue may look sometimes a bit melodramatic or ‘heavy’…
I´m not heavy at heart though.
Madhu
“Misfits aren’t misfits among other misfits.”
(Barry Manilow (!!) )
Misfits – is a word that Veeresh liked. `Misfit City` – and his idea of creating international `Osho Freestates`.
I appreciated Veeresh`s creativity with his music.
Perhaps some music can give some healing…
https://youtu.be/cbGWGz_AWag
Sounds like Barry White on E !
Madhu enquires, “Can a collective healing take place in a small group like this?”
I find that to be a ridiculous question. You go to a mechanic if you need your car fixed. The shop to buy some food, SN for a laugh and maybe an interesting bit of info, perhaps a bit of ping pong with another blogger. But healing! Come on, Madhu, SN is just not the kind of thing to get any healing done.
To imagine that some sort of collective healing could happen here sounds pure bonkers to me. For a start, why on earth would anyone want to get anything healed on SN? There are dozens of places to go and do that. SN is a blog site, for fuck’s sake.
Madhu, perhaps you could give an example of what kind of healing could, in your imagination, take place on SN. That might lead to some interesting comments.
Yes, thanks, Lokesh. True, “SN is a blog site, for fuck´s sake”.
I joined after a long time just reading. Immensely grateful about the sharing of ‘shadow work’´re the different phases of the Sannyas movement as such by some daring contributors ( individuals), which I didn´t find elsewhere – that honest way, as it was (is?) happening here.
Especially grateful to late Parmartha, whom I came a little bit closer to these years by reading and writing.
A sober man of integrity in my eyes, daring to put some quite shady topis in the open here, like FBI files or interviews, up to even a book like ‘The Day We Got Guns’ – in order to integrate some very uncomfortable aspects of the movement bearing many traumata issues for sannyasins like me.
Of great importance has been for me that late Parmartha has been in unwavering love and gratitude to Osho too – and not in a romanticising way (!), YET inspiring to shed light onto the shadow-sides and bringing the Light and the Shadow together.
Quite a Sisyphean task, I´d say – and that kind of honest way I didn´t find anywhere else besides this blogging site.
Healing is for me when uncomfortable information can show up, be integrated, without ‘throwing the baby’ ( – LOVE – ) ‘out of the bath water’.
I didn´t find invitations for that kind of healing by meeting prejudiced shrinks, whose efforts had been – more or less – to invite me just into another prison cell of the mind and psyche, and I experienced that, you bet!
So – it had been of importance for me – to find contributors who knew from the base of an experiential level what is talked about.
You´ve been asking for an example, Lokesh, for a ´healing´ (which for me means integration and becoming whole)?
Healing by processing some of the very uncomfortable information which elsewhere were more or less hidden under some carpet.
Healing by getting bits and pieces of valuable information has been sometimes happening for me here, reading and then writing on this ´fucks-sake´-SN-website.
(And – btw – knowing that late Parmartha had been involved working with victims of torture brought up in me lots of trust to keep on going).
Point is, when integrating the processing of traumata is drowning collectively in a pot of symptoms soup (and unneccesary fights), so to say.
And the latter is what I tried to point at in my article re ´a topic´.
Madhu
Cool, Madhu, even though I am not sure what you are talking about half the time, I am sure it is heartfelt.
Sure, you don’t know what she is talking about.
Madhu has a sannyas trauma because she was on the Ranch. You not, because you were not.
Beloved Madhu, in my life experience I have not found healing by being in crowds. Just the opposite. I do not even understand the idea of collective healing. From an early age the collective seemed insane. Only by becoming a misfit, by leaving the collective, healing became possible, and ultimately an acceptance of the whole as it is.
“Solitariness has a healing effect, it is a healing force. Whenever you feel that you are getting messed up, don’t try to solve it there. Move away from society for a few days, for at least three weeks, and just remain silent, just watching yourself, feeling yourself, just being with yourself, and you will have a tremendous force available which heals.
Hence, in the East, many people have moved to the mountains, to the forests, somewhere alone, somewhere where there is nobody else to be bothered with. Only oneself…so one can feel oneself directly, and you can see what is happening within.
Nobody is responsible for you except yourself, remember. If you are mad you are mad – you have to sort it out: it is your deed! This is what Hindus say: your karma. The meaning is very deep. It is not a theory. They say, whatsoever you are it is your own work, so sort it out! Nobody else is responsible for you, only you are responsible.”
Osho, ‘And The Flowers Showered’ (chapter 4)
Hi Samarpan,
Even before conception, to grow up into a human being, we are tiny part of a ´whole´, call it collective´or otherwise and there we´re disappearing into some or other time.
Some Wisdom Wisperers, like Osho did, like Ramana did, and – at any time – others did or are doing – are sharing with us how to manage the´walkabout´ we call ´living in the human form’.
Others will come or are happening presently with or without our coming to know about them.
The collective Healing – how I meant it – is always a very individual as at same time a collective happening as we are all inter-dependent, anyway connected: in the whole of its happening.
AND:
Thank you very much for quoting something out of ‘The Flowers Showered’ from the world of Osho. I don´t see any contradiction there to that which I wanted to express.
Madhu
Beloved Samarpan declares, “Only by becoming a misfit, by leaving the collective, healing became possible, and ultimately an acceptance of the whole as it is.”
This might sound good to some, but it is actually a load of bollocks. It is also delivering an extremely limited perspective, hence Osho’s insistence on doing it in the marketplace, slap bang in the current of life.
Being a misfit is fine by me, but it certainly is not a prerequisite for healing oneself.
“There is a deep humility in seeing the world as it is and not as we want it to be. There is a profound relaxation when we accept ourselves as we are and cease to hankerfor what we are not. We are infused with an
absolute grace as we rest in the present moment and are neither preoccupied with our past nor fixated upon our future.”
Bruce Menzies (Anand Murti), ‘Whirlpool: In & Out of a Spiritual Washing Machine’ (2019)
Ain’t this the truth?
We get to move through life taking what comes in our stride. Down-to-earth.
Taking what comes internally and externally in our stride.
Hi Samarpan (23 November 2019, at 3:20 pm),
Grateful for your Bruce Menzies (aka Anand Murti)´quote; it surely makes a difference and may be also some healing antidote to the Netflix hype (?) and its after-effects.
One can listen to some interview with Bruce’s voice on fremantleshippingnews.com and I’ve gone halfway through it by now – as I before that remembered that Bruce had (times ago) a very short visit in Sannyasnews too, as a contributor (and I did like that!). Maybe ´our´ (caravanserai) lot had been a bit inspiring and I´m so glad he is not a cynic.
A fellow-traveller, Australien too, and working as a lawyer*, father of two sons and living close to some places where a few sannyas friends of mine have disappeared into, whom I lost contact with long, long ago.
The recording is technically difficult to listen to at my secluded (Apple) place here, but maybe for some of you better to hear, and I´d recommend it as it is encouraging on the balancing-ground.
Thanks, Samarpan.
Madhu
*P.S:
Love it that he is a lawyer, presumely worth his salt, I´d imagine (fantasize…) – and someone from the friends of THIS I would really like to meet here in Munich!
My feeling is that this Chat is not representative (and cannot be such) of the world of Osho and his vision of the New Man (which implies healing) because the body with its emotions is missing, there are only minds; and the only service the mind can do to the Being is to indicate what is not Being.
Paradoxically, therefore, this Chat represents Osho only saying that it does not represent Him, but, implying that healing cannot happen here, it also gives the first correct indication of therapy.
In my opinion, healing requires the ‘right tension’ between body and mind, when meditative practice & focusing on wounds has made us relaxed and trustful with both, lighting our inner sun, the heart, the centre of our mystery.
But who am I to exclude that words without a face and without a body can ignite in a mysterious way the heart of someone who claims to be a misfit?
Btw, if there is a mainstrem social tendency in Osho’s circus it is to not judge others, along with themselves, and eventually the misfits would be identified with this propensity.
“And he dreamed of the circus, an upside-down reality/a world of equals because all weirdos.” (Cencio (the dwarf), Francesco Guccini)
Veet says, “if there is a mainstream social tendency in Osho’s circus it is to not judge others, along with themselves.”
Well, yes, the idea that it is best to adopt a non-judgemental attitude was and is core to the sannyas credo. Ironic really, seeing as how a judgement is required in order to adopt a non-judgemental attitude.
Of course, as the downfall of Rajneeshpuram illustrated perfectly, a bunch of sheep thinking it’s better to not judge what is happening can lead to a calamity. Not enough lions around to stand up and roar out, “For fuck’s sake, this is wrong!”
Sannyasins judge others more than anybody else. It is like flies sitting on the elephant think how tiny others are.
Lokesh is a lion with words, he continues to judge people he doesn’t know in a situation he hasn’t lived. He also equates the creed with judgment, and the latter with two slices of ham in front of the eyes. Fundamentally, a dishonest intellectual is one who does not care about the relationship between language and reality, forcing one or the other to make them coincide.
It seems to me that the practice of non-judgment is a foregone notion in a spiritual and therapeutic context like our Sangha.
The assumption is that united by and in love for the Master one also has the courage to be honest when circumstances bring out our defects, dark sides or human weaknesses. In this perspective, then why judge when we understood the importance of given and requested feedback?
I also wasn’t in Oregon, and if I had been there I would probably have worked intensely and with passion to give expression to the internalized vision of a new society for the new man. And I don’t know how many possibilities I would have had to get in touch with the mafia dome of Sheela but, in the case, why should I think that my energy would have stopped flowing to stagnate in a judgment towards their egos?
Imho, when the ego and power trips make a communication based on compassion impossible, then we come into conflict with and within the community born around Osho, sometimes we can even feel free from the hindrance of hurting the other, if that is the cost we prefer to pay to give expression to emotions of hostility towards those who we perceive as enemies, threats, aliens….
“Ironic really, seeing as how a judgement is required in order to adopt a non-judgemental attitude.”
So this means judgement is inevitable!
Feels good, Veet Francesco, to read your yesterday´s response (at 10:58 pm).
Quite an honest investigation of your insights, more like a quest (an inner search filled with some question marks) instead of having fixed opinions about (historical) stuff one has not been part of (lived).
Can assure you that there is no doubt about it that one cannot speak from a bunch of (stupid) sheep in that historical context – like Lokesh has the tendency to do. And Lokesh is not the only one to do so – up to the present moment.
I know that by my own experience of being in that historical ´pressure cooker´, a ´pressure cooker´, btw, mirroring ANY market ´place´ – not only in some Oregonian desert, and not only that and then and there.
There were quite some who lived their rebellious spirit also then and there AND there have been some who lost their humanity re fellow-travellers and – as you term it – “felt free from the hindrance of hurting” and thoroughly abusing friends.
However, what you´re describing in your last parags. is happening on a daily basis and some in such contexts call it (cynically, I´d say): “Human Conditioning”.
That way, an honest inner investigation of intentions (and patterns of reactions) while being with others is asked for and challenged moment to moment.
Rebelliousness has its prize*. Always.
And if you are a lover and follow a dream of a loving and co-operating society instead of one which is based on competition or at the extreme, building mafia-like, unfair gaming strucures this way: de-humanising others for your means – that has its prize* too.
It´s good and a sheer neccessity to learn not to complain about it. The latter is a learning, which is mostly an unlearning of stuff we have been brought up with. A learning by unlearning, which never ends, it seems.
When you are confronted and defamed for being a ´Dreamer´ you could answer, yes, I am, “but I am not the only one…” and sing that fabulous song we favoured…long ago.
Madhu
MOD:
* “prize” – Madhu, presumably this should be “price”?
Veet declares, “He continues to judge people he doesn’t know in a situation he hasn’t lived.”
These words could have been used to describe Osho while alive. Osho was often extremely judgemental of people he did not know and of situations he had not lived. Meanwhile, the sheep sat at his feet, nodding in synchronicity when Osho spoke about being non-judgemental, their critical faculties dismantled by a blind love for all things Osho. In such matters I agree with Tim Leary when he said, “Think for yourself and question all authorities.”
Osho ran an authoritarian show, as in favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom. He did not disguise this fact because he made it clear that his commune was not a democracy. Osho quote: “I am not a democrat. I am a dictator; that is why so many Germans come to me.”
Achtung babe! I do not have a problem with that, and watching the breakdown in democratic societies today it would seem that democracy, in the long run, does not really work. I have no idea what can replace the democratic process. Osho favoured dictatorship. Maybe he was right. I do not know. The whole ‘do not judge’ trip is bankrupt because if you do not make a judgement from time to time the shits will take over.
Better not to have judgements about being judgemental. That is a judgement, of course. That is ok as Veet’s comment is peppered with judgements.
And…
My God…Lokesh too is a lion of cut/paste industry!
Thanks God, neither lions nor sheep read and write quotations. Posting Osho quotation is simply non-sexy, non-intelligent way of communicating.
Shantam, I really do not give a fuck what Osho said, but some of the pygmies writing on SN do and therefore I toss a relevant quote into the stew to keep them happy. Which reminds me, we have not heard much from the master of copy and paste Osho quotes, Arpana, lately. Probably too busy listening to Osho tapes to bother with the baboons on SN. Ugh!
@Lokesh,
“What is politics all about? It is like something animals do. You can see the whole political structure, the same politics of any capital of the world, even in a group of baboons. There is a president, the chief; then there are subordinates and servants, there are lower castes and higher castes — everything.
The chief is the super baboon. No one else can come near him; he has his own personal space. Even when the group is moving, the chief moves alone: a certain space is left around him. Those who cross his boundary do so at their own risk.
There is a whole pecking order. The higher baboon suppresses the lower and the lower cannot even rebel. This is the inner politics; it continues every moment. Whenever a new baboon tries to become a chief, there is fighting and violence. Then, once again, the pecking order is changed and reshuffled.
Then, too, there are many baboon groups in a forest, each group with its own territory which no other group can enter or there will be violence, war. The same has happened with man. This is the boundary: China begins here and India ends here. The question of the boundary is a great problem and ultimately only force decides where the boundary will be. If you go into politics deeply and if you compare it with a baboon group or any other animal group, you will see absolute similarities.”
Osho, The Great Challenge
Chapter 11
Chapter title: Remaining Closed To The Lower: A Technique For Transformation.
I think that baboons get a bad rap around here.
It wasn`t always like this…
https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/primates-ancient-egypt-deification-and-importance-baboons-and-monkeys-part-021888
Osho baboon tried to mark out a new territory in the USA. As Osho said, “If you go into politics deeply and if you compare it with a baboon group or any other animal group, you will see absolute similarities.”
The Yankee baboons no likey orange baboons, especially big bag chief Osho baboon.
Osho realize he overstepped his boundaries and flew away in metal bird, leaving pygmy baboons behind. Same old story.
For some reason, that reminds me of a funny northern guy I knew years ago.
He was telling me about the time that he had appeared in court on a charge of possession of cannabis.
“How did they catch you?” I asked .
“ON CCTV, rollin` a joint, man,” he answered.
“Shit, CCTV?” I said. “It`s becoming a police state! Where was this then?”
“In the queue at Lloyds bank,” he answered, deadpan, continuing: “I ended up in the magistates.
I fookin` hate magistrates, they are soooo fookin` judgmental, man.”
And…
there would be many other aspects to mention to describe what a judgmental approach is or is not; for example, when behaviours are the target, to remember that they do not always coincide with the Being.
“Being non-judgemental is having sense of balance, a way of understanding misunderstandings and a way of accepting those with whom he/she may disagree. This behaviour is reflected in one’s words, choices, actions and reactions.
Being non-judgemental is becoming an observer of life and not to decide about a behaviour or expression if it was right or wrong. It is a behaviour when we first observe both our own and others’ reactions. Observing our reactions is a way to empathise with and understand rather than judge other people.
To become non-judgemental the development of an empathic approach to people is needed.”
(OSHO)
“Without judgment, there is no justice.”
(OSHO)
Knowing all too well the feeling of judging and being judged, I begin to see the difference of judging in order that I want somebody to change so that I don’t have to change. That is not looking at the judgements I have about myself, or just pointing out a particular fact I don’t like about somebody.
I heard somebody say – and I think it might be true ’cause I recognize it in myself – that everyone has a dirty little secret of thinking that they are wrong.
And on top of that, we (I) have a judgement about that, and afraid that somebody else might discover that. So the best defence is to project that on others so we (I) stay clear, we think – and everybody is doing it!
But the thing is, feeling wrong is no mistake. As long as we think we are separated from the Whole, we cannot but feel ‘wrong’. And out of this ‘wrongness’ everything seems wrong.
Still, in the end it’s only a thought believed, but a very pervasive one: the ‘I’ thought.
My intuition is that Osho, when he judged people, he came from the Whole, not from the ‘I’ thought (“I am wrong, so everything else is wrong”). His judgements therefore, i.m.o, carry an underlying lightness, a compassion coming from unconditional love. Therefore it wasn’t to harm the person, but to hopefully wake him up.
Levina,
I`m like that too.
I only call people mentally retarded pygmies, idiots, baboons, tossers, little men, assholes and dickheads etc. for their own good and for the sole purpose of trying to wake them up.
Do the knobheads listen?
Do they bollocks!
Twats!
Well, you never know, Frank, what the after-effects are when they are in their safe private space, as you, i.m.h.o., maybe can remember when you were at their end of the stick before you got enlightened?
“Well, you never know, Frank, what the after-effects are when they are in their safe private space…”
Levina, as someone I know said a few years ago, when you have a period of a lot of contact with ‘fellow-travellers’ and/or you spend a lot of time and energy on ‘looking within’, you tend to forget that the overwhelming majority of people out there are simply not interested at all in ‘psycho-spiritual growth’ and therefore would regard such derogatory comments (if they heard them at all) as insults from a complete arsehole, deserving a punch or two back, or at best, total flakey nonsense, irrelevant to themselves.
Best to never underestimate the self-protective ‘inertia of unconsciousness’ (to coin a phrase) around us, including in self-professed ‘seekers’ (I know my own such propensities for this rather well).
Parmartha, a social worker for many years, as well as having had much experience in Sannyas, so well used to hearing others’ problems, used to say that “people very often simply ignore advice and some always never seem to listen”, even when it’s glaringly obvious, even to common sense, that they need to make changes.
Then there’s the socio-political level, of course, where ignorance and sheer stubborn stupidity can reach absurd collective proportions. One recent instance was when a youngish (to me) English guy, perhaps around late 20s/early 30s, when asked in a tv street interview how he felt about global warming/climate change, given the dire scientific predictions, replied that no, he wasn’t in the least concerned, in fact it all sounded pretty good, he liked a bit of sun and we could do with hotter summers here in the UK – and besides, that would be great for his business! (Er, yes – for a while, perhaps, until…).
Am I being judgmental here? Of course I bloody well am! As my old History teacher used to say, there have to be some people who can at least attempt to look dispassionately at situations, problems, issues in the world as, left to the 99-plus% who can’t or don’t want to, who prefer to follow their emotional preferences and prejudices, the outlook wouldn’t be too bright. Cue Boris Johnson for PM, Trump for President (etc. etc. etc.).
Same goes for the inner world, surely? Anyone here aware of their ‘inner Trump’, or ‘inner Boris’ – or inner “Who cares, I’m all right, mate – it’ll be good for my business. No worries!”?
Time for a bit of toast….
Levina,
Joking apart, “mentally ill” Jesus Christ came away with:
“Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?”
Is that the sort of thing you mean?
Well, Frank, since you know your Bible texts all right, I’m sure you know what it means – and what do you mean by “mentally ill”? Jesus Christ?
Levina,
“Mentally ill Jesus Christ” was the moniker that Osho gave JC in one of his talks back in the Ranch days, I seem to remember.
My point in quoting JC is that `do not judge` as a religious/spiritual idea has been around for a long time and as cultural Xians many people here were exposed to it pretty early on.
It all sounds great, and yes, not being a bigot and prejudiced is generally smart; nevertheless, the old `do not judge` schtick often sounds too much like the old story of the messiah dog who preached to dogs that they shouldn`t bark!
“If you can grow in love you will grow in awareness. If you grow in awareness, you will grow in love,” (Osho)
Thank you, Madhu, for the intro. I understand where you are coming from, but I doubt if a virtual site like SN can be a healing place. Sometimes I feel uplifted or inspired by what I read. Sometimes there is laughter,and very often irritation and amazement at the hostile beliefs that are spouted at the expense of somebody else.
So triggers galore here! And I find indirectly there is a healing in myself when a core issue is triggered again and I have to look and go through it.
In the end it’s all mind stuff, and if I only want the uplifting, inspiring tidbits, then I’m in trouble, ’cause my expectations are not met when I read hostile, denigrating remarks. So it’s the same situation with what Life presents us with: sometimes it feels good and sometimes it feels not good, like the rose in the desert.
I know, it all sounds a bit preachy, but apparently that’s how I sing my song here on SN. And yes, it would be great if we could say: “Oh, no, I don’t agree with your song, it sounds awful to me, but I love you for expressing it, ’cause you are also part of the orchestra, and without you I couldn’t sing my song!”
“And yes, it would be great if we could say: “Oh, no, I don’t agree with your song, it sounds awful to me, but I love you for expressing it, ’cause you are also part of the orchestra, and without you I couldn’t sing my song!”
I like this, Levina, it encapsulates a generosity of spirit that this world seems to be rather short of (to put it mildly) and which it desperately needs, at many levels, from intimate relations to politics, perhaps even at online Chat sites….
True enough, Satyadeva.
Have enjoyed reading all the posts here over the past few months, all have merit on some personal level, the orchestra is big and plays on through the night…although I’ve been too engaged with a thousand and one things to find time to contribute, unfortunately…
Did get to see a Dylan concert here in the States a few weeks ago…now here’s a singer singing his songs, and at 78 years old no less, 100 venues a year, croakin’ ‘em out with a group of skilled back-up musicians. New arrangements, auto-tune dialed in no doubt, bringing in some steady income for him and his travelling crew.
I bring this up here because it seems apropos to the discussion, reminded me a lot like the O-Show…revered man on stage, audience out there, show starts punctually…
Word-salads one after another, the Man dressed-up in a dinner jacket, total control of the event…”What do the lyrics mean?…is it just the poet having fun, or is this supposed to be serious too – deep stuff that will transform us and the world?” Some in the audience sitting like in church, others drinking a glass of beer and laughing and high-fiving left and right, some swaying and dancing in their private trips…in the end, all got something out of it, it seemed…including Bob! Looked so similar to the Osho thing in so many ways….
Well, anyway…Big P, wherever you are, thanks for the site, for creating a platform for a handful to sing their songs, for better or for worse…
Auto-tune at SN is corrected spelling and capitalization fine-tuning seems like….
Hi Bob,
Thanks for the Bob on Bob report.
Sounds about right to me.
Hi Bob,
I grew up with Dylan on Positively Fourth Street, but I was never really a fan. That is until a friend invited me to a concert in Rotterdam’s Ahoy. Front line seats right in the middle. Man, what a concert. I just loved the man. The band were superb, bending the music to Bob’s personal pace. Absolutely amazing. A bit like seeing the Stones in the sense that you are watching a musical legend.
I do not think it’s a money thing. Those guys do not get a kick anywhere else that compares to being live on stage in front of thousands of fans. I did not want Dylan to stop playing. It was that good.
Joy around midnight, Bob, when seeing your appearance on the screen here at my place, and wanting to let you know about it, wherever you are!
As you say: words can appear as friends of THIS, but there is nothing of a guarantee if such is allowed to happen…
“Auto-tune at SN”?
Whatever that is, I don´t know.
Bur I can share (may I?) that I made it for a long walk yesterday, to enjoy some rich late autumn flavours outside, being in awe about it when the silver-steel-grey sky (seemingly closed platform) ABOVE surprised – openig up here and there – spots of an aquamarine blue and Light.
The trees are alright, having their network of communication deep-down anyway. If we know about it. Or not.
Welcome back again, Bob – to that unknowable caravanserai; a mystery of its own accord.
Madhu
Beloved Madhu says, ““Auto-tune at SN”? Whatever that is, I don´t know.”
Good that beloved Madhu gets a taste of her own cough syrup.
His blessings….
“Auto-tune” is a current software technology that is used commonly in modern music recording studios (and also in live concerts, I think), that ‘cleans up’ the singing vocals of the performers. It makes the singing more in tune, less distorted, more intelligible, etc.
Singers are ‘accused’ of using it as an artificial crutch to make them sound better to the listener.
I was surprised to learn that it is a standard practice now for most recording sessions, not just if the singer is losing his or her ability to hit the notes right. From Hip-hop to Country, to Rock, and Jazz–across the board–seems like everyone is doing it, according to those in this line of work.
This technology has its dark side too though–you can, through manipulating sound frequencies and overtones–recreate someone else’s voice identity, for example. It’s coming to that. The techs can make your voice sound like Osho’s, if they put enough work into it. So, a digital audio mp3 can be manufactured to replicate anyone’s voice.
It’s easy to see the dangers here–let’s say some sannyasin goes in a recording studio and wants to bang down our poor Shantam, reads some bogus copy, like “I have a disciple, Shantam, who is just a Judas…” in a perfectly articulated Osho voice pattern, speed, gaps between words, etc. You can see quickly the problem here. Or vice versa–Shantam goes in and reads, “My beloved disciple Shantam is the man I have chosen to right the sinking ship at my commune…”
Maybe it hasn’t quite come to that level of tech skill yet, but I can’t see why it won’t soon; putting fake sound-bytes in world leaders’ voices to either destroy or uplift their image in the media would become commonplace.
The next step, of course, is that if everyone knows this is possible, then blanket cynicism will be generated in the audience. You see this already in the younger generation, many really don’t believe anything anymore, innocence is lost. “How can we tell if it’s real?” Even if something IS real, you now have to prove it! Whoever controls the media technology will control humanity’s minds.
This Brave New World is not really very brave though, is it?
It is interesting, though. My musical partner is keen to sample Osho’s voice for a whole album of tunes. I said forget it because OIF would be on it. So maybe that is a way around the problem. Here is a rough take.
https://soundcloud.com/luke-mitchell/osho-tommorow-never-comes
Lokesh, several other artists have done it. Including yourself.
So please just tell your friend to carry on and just do it and don`t be worried.
Here`s another one:
https://youtu.be/-P_Zp5uhazU
Carry on regardless.
Bob,
It seems the future was here yesterday!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sR1rU3gLzQ
Thanks, Bob for clearing that aspect of “Auto-tune” in a roundabout way.
“Not really brave”, the new world – as you say…
Sheds some light too, murky though, on the very origins of hate speech in chat rooms or – on the other side – the origins of long-distance diagnoses of self-appointed enlightentertainment business people looking for customers.
In so-called ´good old encounter group´ setting times you could come out with a broken bone or reliving a violent rape experience, “all for your good”, as you were assured.
The settings in virtual ´encounters´, claiming to be just honest freedom of speech, are providing for skilled IT programmers, habituated in the anonymous ‘dark-side of the moon´ (DarkNet) with quite other manuals to destroy another human being: leaving it to some other violence then and/or to the MOB which is more into ´hands-on’ streetwork mongers, one can say.
There have been good reasons in the UK for applying Shakespearean theatre play in British prisons as projects to get some consciousness working in some brains…It is said that that worked.
And you are right again when stating that innocence is lost this way and valuable proof about the latter hardly (and not) possible.
You´ve been a friendly human and good observer, Bob, sharing with us an experience in the musical scene and there was no harm then and thereabouts that “Auto-tune” was happening.
Grateful about your sharing some info re the media technology I didn´t know about.
Madhu
I find it interesting, Bob,to see that this technology, artificial intelligence indeed, is such a perfect copycat of what’s already the case, as in: I think my voice is mine, but apparently if it can be manipulated to sound like anybody else’s, then mine starts to get a little shaky, and perhaps with that, the revelation that my voice is your voice.
And if robots can do so much better then the human body/mind, who am I then? And with that question the insight that perhaps this body/mind that I think I am is also nothing but a robot.
I mean everything can be manipulated now by technology, everything is becoming fake, but the fact is that it (appearances) are already fake, a fake in a fake. so to say.
Oef…that’s quite enough fake for today!
Thank you for your response, Levina.
And yes, I too would especially suscribe to your very last paragraph – as Satyadeva did.
We don´t know, do we (?) what the ´Desert Rose´ which is actually happening is ´feeling; she is as part of this whole complexity Nature is providing us with, being in awe about it.
So are we Humans too. Fractionalised…It´s all mind-stuff, you suggest, happening here.
Yet – thinking of Dylan´s ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ as a beautiful indication that much is happening besides and beyond words and songs we’re uttering, if we are able to catch its drift…
Gratefulness for such, when this is happening.
With Love,
Madhu
Perfectly correct, Madhu!
Certainly, Paritosh, Parmartha and Dharmen were working under the auspices of the Nine Men of Mighty Bhorat when they created Sannyasnews!
Indeed, it is not beyond the bounds of the possible that they were in fact 3 of the 9 men themselves! (3×3=9. 3+3+3+9=18. 1+8=9!! The occult evidence is certainly overwhelming!).
The vision of the Nine in creating SN was that it was to bring forth not only a tsunami of collective healing that would heal the world of its manifold traumas but also create nothing less than a quantum leap in consciousness as never seen before on the planet, and finally, the emergence of the new man!
Sadly, like the Nine`s previous efforts with Krishnamurti, Hitler and Shantambhai, the plan has flopped as badly as Shantambhai`s vital organs since the pumping phase(88-90)!
This has, of course, been due to interference by unconscious baboons, retarded pygmies, idiots, ex-sannyasins, the ego and the mind which is nothing but mind!
Thus SannyasNews has degenerated into a post-apocalyptic world prowled by Scottish skinheads, bitter Brummies, bunker-dwellers, cynics and many other lower astral forms of consciousness that continue to conspire to destroy Osho`s vision!
Thankfully, there have been some moments of grace!
Thanks to Sannyasnews, countless millions have been exposed to the wisdom of mighty Bhorat that has shone forth like a beacon in the cesspit of unconsciousness!
So, all is not lost!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
Well, I almost choked on my toast-and-margarine reading this just now. First laugh I’ve had today.
Now that’s what I call “healing”.
Perfectly correct, SD!
Certainly, the healing energy of mighty Bhorat descends from the open sky down through the spiritual darkness of SN like a golden cascade emanating from the underside of Kingfisher Airways flight 05H0 from Here to Here whilst air hostesses are serving free beer to passengers during outbreak of diuretic failure!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
AY, you are a Master Healer!
So agree with SD, & healing surely is in eyes of the beholder!
Perfectly correct, Kavita!
As the title of the thread makes clear, the winds of change are certainly emanating forcefully from the bowels of mighty Bhorat!
It has been thus for many yugas!
In fact, since the ancient sages of our browned and hallowed turf invented the Vedic science that created Upanishads and Dal Makani!
Also, SN proves the famous dictum, mentioned here a short while ago, that the greatest website, like the greatest master, is not the one that attracts most followers, but the one that attracts the most master debaters!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
Purpose of writing at sannyasnews is to create fodder for Yogi´s parody.
Theme music for Madhu. One of the most heartfelt songs ever delivered by Van the Man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbIlXz1neik
Thanks for the music, Lokesh.
“How precious are we for each other? And how can we learn in this virtual Chat to nourish each other in a better way – as long as we are able to write and read in a virtual Chat?”
Madhu dear, after participating on SN I realized the preciousness of time which is utmost not only for me but for the precious one too!
Earlier (about seven years ago ) when I came across anyone who seemed precious to me, I would want to be in their physical presence; now I prefer at the most to have a virtual & maybe a seldom telephone contact.
I guess we have to find our own nourishment & if what we share nourishes someone that’s good luck for both!
When someone is a thinker type and has no other channel to express, then sannyasnews kind of open blogs heal the psyche by giving space to various thought processes.
It is not a lesser contribution. To ask for more is like kissing the mobile screen while watching love story!
Hi Madhu,
You ask: Is healing here possible in this small group?
I say Yes, why not? It depends on the individual.
If you do a walk in nature, healing is possible.
If something touches you, healing is possible.
If a reminder touches you, healing is possible for the momemt.
Reminds me of what Somendra said in a group:
“I am here to get you that there is nothing to get.
Did you get it?”
Healing is needed if there is a split between the inner energy and the outer expectation (one can think that a Master or a sangha expects something).
Sannyasnews is a place for a little gossip and banter. It’s a little bit of fun. Such things are not allowed on other places like Osho News, where there is no comment section.
These things are also not allowed in some online or offline circumstances – where sannyasins reply with “much love”, “that is amazing” and similar such emotional “Love” cliches…and they don’t address deeper issues and want to project an appearance that they are “in the Heart”. You have to be “in the heart” in a very lobotomized way – otherwise people will judge you not meditative enough, or “in the mind”.
Being in the heart does not mean you have to be a lobotomized idiot who communicates in emotional “love” cliches.
—
Dear Madhu, is that what you are trying to tell us?
I quote:
“He or she in the human realm may have received some glimpses of knowing the Being aspect, always present yet not always showing up visibly, being almost forgotten…not rarely feeling a threat of death…And in the midst of that as well, not rarely starting war-like scenarios, just to hold on to an identity, imagining a threat from another nearby identity: thereby losing its core issue of consciousness that one is meant to be the way one is (at the core/Being).
My question is whether such a knowing can be established, realised, encouraged amidst the tsunami of virtual waves of information – and information used as a fighting manual, as meanwhile quite often happens here at SN/UK.”
To me, it looks like – in a very cunning and roundabout way – you are suggesting that all of us who comment on Sannyas News should just stop contradicting each other and just be ‘in the love.’
You are not saying this directly, but in a very roundabout and cunning way. You are basically saying: stop all the contradictory arguments and just be “in the heart”, “in the love” – supporting each other.
I quote again:
“Can a collective healing take place in a small group like this? Associated with the wise insights a Paracelsus once had, which really deserves a meditation about it.”
Some of the previous commenters have naively assumed that you want to feel part of this online community and, as a consequence, you want to experience some kind of healing.
I think you are looking down on us, from a superior position, and preaching — telling us that we should stop all the contradictory arguments – and “be in the heart”.
Can’t we be more “healing”?
Because you have phrased in such a cunning manner, people don’t realize your true intentions and are taking your comment at face value, and trying to help.
I don’t think you are naive to not know that an online message board cannot offer real connection and healing.
I think you have come to this board to preach to us that we should be more “in the heart” and stop all arguments.
If you have been brainwashed by sannyas conditioning and you believe in the idea that in order to “be in the heart” you have to be a lobotomized idiot who speaks sugary love, emotional cliches.
Please go somewhere else where you find like-minded people.
I have to confess, I’ve been reading sannyasnews since 1999. For a long time I did not appreciate it and thought these intellectual conversations to be futile.
Now I appreciate it as the only place where anything can be discussed freely – without any censorship. Doubts can be expressed, even outlandish theories or, sometimes, personal insults. Remember that personal insults on the internet have less power than personal insults in real life.
I enjoy this “anything goes” freedom to talk, and even express doubts. It’s also just a bit of gossip and banter, not too serious.
If you don’t like it, go elsewhere.
After 20 years of meditation, I no longer believe you have to be lobotomized in order to be loving, or to be in the heart. This belief is a big part of sannyas conditioning – and some people just imitate what they see other people do.
If you want to be lobotomized, go join the lobotomized crowd of people. If you want healing, as people pointed out, go do a group in real life, not on a message board.
But my feeling is that you want us to heal – and stop gossiping so much. You want to correct us, and make us ‘right’.
–
Meditating, I discovered that I can use my mind, and talk about anything I want, and still be in the heart. No need to put up an act and pretend to be a lobotomized idiot.
I am full of love, and yet my mind can function perfectly when needed. I think Osho proved this by his own example. A silent mind can still think.
Beloved Ganga, thank you for your well-considered comment.
His blessings….
Certainly Gagaji is one of the Nine Men of Mighty Bhorat!
He says he has been reading SannyasNews since 1999, when in fact SN was launched in 2001! Only one with clairaudient and clairvoyant siddhis bestowed by Swami Bhorat himself could do that!
However, Gagaji`s judgmental judgments that come from the mind which is nothing but mind about Madhu are utterly wrong and could only come from a mind steeped in algorithms of abuse, torture, misogyny, rape, bad-mouthing, belittlement, violence, disparagement, vilification and hate-speech!
It is necessary to understand in a spirit of deep love that Beloved Madhu is as essential to SN as Nurse Ratchet in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’, Ena Sharples in `Coronation Street` and Hattie Jacques in `Carry on up the Chakras`.
If it was not for her timely, totally comprehensible and utterly cliché-free interventions, the patients at SN would become utterly uncontrollable and sink into an orgy of banter, joking around, fighting, coming from the head not the heart and instead of meditating just sitting around doing nothing!
Certainly, they need to be constantly reminded of a very vital truth on the sacred walkabout from here to here:
IT IS NOT FUNNY!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
I started reading in 2000, AY, after Swami Paritosh, aka `Sam` Han Solo (hashish smuggler) reccomended it to me!
Beloved Shanti!
Bhorat sends message not to be too concerned about time as it is simply an illusion that belongs to the mind!
Better to focus on the timeless mindlessness of Bhorat`s vision!
His blissings!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
“A silent mind can still think.”*
*Conditions apply.
Spot on re SN and its function, Gangaji, a refreshing and necessary antidote to the ‘party line cult-speak’ prevalent at other Sannyas websites.
But Madhu seems to be in a particularly difficult situation, following what I understand to be profound traumatic experience(s).
Isolation is no joke, and it can make things very hard to bear, particularly in what appears to be a rather hostile immediate environment. Easy to say or think, impatiently, “For God’s sake, do something to get out of it!” But not so straightforward in reality, as I well know myself, from my own and others’ experience.
Yes, people in crisis can be a pain in the neck. I have a neighbour downstairs who’s been severely ‘stuck’ for years, hoarding so that her flat has barely a few square feet free of stuff, sleepless, unhealthy, alone, her friends having disappeared – and she tends to call me to ‘unload’ her frustration, invariably a lengthy monologue and often at the most awkward times, when I often inwardly curse her.
But while I have to set certain limits, that’s balanced by the sense, ‘there but for the grace of God go you or I.’
(Here endeth this afternoon’s lesson).
Satyadeva,
It is a hard fact, master whose USP was commune has left behind lonely hearts living isolated existence.
I wonder why people shy away to accept, cult of Sannyas sank like a ship with the holes.
One big consolation, not many people joined the new crew, new ship.
Real life read, not philosophy talks.
That`s what this song ‘Once upon an Osho’ is about!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypFf_DuYst4
I don’t think Madhu is isolated.
If she would be really isolated, she would not share here. Is your neighbour also on a blog site, SD?
On the contrary, Satchit, my feeling is that Madhu shares here because she’s isolated. But better that she speaks on this.
No, Satchit, my neighbour isn’t on any blog site although she used to spend many hours scrolling the net. But for quite a while now her computer (and washing machine and central heating) hasn’t worked. And she can’t afford to pay for repairs or the fees, even if it were functioning.
Satchit, you are one lucky chap who has a one room set in fool´s paradise!
Is this a good or a bad judgement, Shantam?
Denzlingen is not far away from you. Did you ever visit Bhagwan’s late chief-disciple there?
Never.
I am not hungry for any guru, mini-guru, past or future guru.
For me, Osho was and is enough and I am not the one who has ever used this adjective, Master of the masters.
And I am not the one who thinks, post-demise, masters work. If they are true, they exist not after death; if not, they are born again, most probably to work as domestic help in their followers’ homes!
Satchit, did you fall out of your pram when you were a baby and get run over by a steamroller?
Very funny,
Mister Loco Bombastic!
There’s still plenty of sannyas ships to fly on, if you want to, Shantam. If you can let go of the Mothership.
These are just the official ones:
https://www.osho.com/meditate/places-to-meditate/meditation-centers
Other aspects, linked to the non-judgmental approach, that emerge from the comments!
Reading SD I see anything but a conditioning at work, the tension of his choice whether to talk to his neighbour or not is not positively dictated by the sense of belonging to a community or, in negative, by the fear of being judged by breaking the rules and precepts.
Obviously, nothing that we think of virtuous (even in a negative sense, for a criminal) can be outside the risk of acting later on us as a conditioning, the stereotypical response to a stimulus.
It seems to me, in the case of SD with his neighbor, that his non-judgment (even when he curses her) is a side-effect of compassion, confirming what someone has said about altruism, as the highest form of selfishness.
I have never seen as many ecstatic people as in the world of Osho…Are the times changing or are the good times coming back?
However, it is always time for a lesson in selfishness, never being too sure how to define our Self.
“There but for the grace of God go I.”
Good one to remember now and then, for sure.
Hi Satyadeva (18 November 2019, at 1:50 pm ),
You´re coming closer to the truth than Satchit, as you both have been pondering a bit about my reasons to join the SN/UK Chat. However, Satchit did/does make also some points to question yours…
“Isolation is no joke, and it can make things very hard to bear”, you say. And how true is that!
About the issue of ´Isolation´ one could talk an encyclopedia, especially in our Zeitgeit -time of scores and ratings (by those depersonalising humans!) which is arriving at the very bottom of some socio-psychological so-called realities.
We all are no exceptions to that mind-fuck, have never been, btw.
Missing exchange with other human beings is not without reason quite an effective torture ´instrument´and you can get quite sick in body, mind and soul too if you endure it without finding a way to deal with it – maybe even make it your friend, accepting it at the best of your capacities to do so. (Let go so).
I´m not the only one in this Chat to face such, even though some of you would deny it.
To experience being isolated from those I used to call ´my friends´ and at the same time being stalked by hooligans of some ‘gamification party’ (totally unknown to me) was indeed the experiential challenging mix I had to face these very last decades.
The whole thing started when I was leaning wide out of the window to fight against a Scientology Church associated BIOTECH Enterprize in the area I used to live some 20 years ago.
Their approach of combining biotech research with money-making trade marketing (of pharmaceutical products as well as life-style seminaristic businesses) included at that time some really ugly and criminal procedures (illegal) in the private zones I called my home-base there and then.
I had to learn to be more than just ´alone´ with my resistance AND I had to learn to face it, that even friends of ´before´, so to say, changed the trottoir*, when seeing me.
(To organize such efficiently is a well-known Scientology Church procedure to deal with ´critics´ – and it was functioning, you bet!).
That all was long ago, before I joined the Chat here.
I had to learn to accept and I had to learn to find old and new ways to relate.
Some of the critical mentionings of a Ganga don´t meet me at all the way my ‘real life’ has unfolded these very last decades.
On the contrary, if we would meet face-to-face we could have much in common instead…but who knows..?
Starting writing after reading in the SN/UK Chat about 6 years ago helped me a lot to go further on the ´Acceptance Boulevard´, also stirred up at lot of old themes (as well as for anybody else, I might say?).
One step at a time…and I´m grateful that I can do this.
Madhu
P.S:
Came home (before writing here from shopping – milk and bread and some other stuff – and had a longer chat with a Tunisian Woman, having a coffee outside…a little bit freezing, yet warm at heart….
*trottoir – French for ‘pavement’
Madhu, you say:
“The whole thing started when I was leaning wide out of the window to fight against a Scientology Church associated BIOTECH Enterprize in the area I used to live some 20 years ago.”
It`s a remarkable image that begs a few questions. Not least:
Were you a Scientologist?
Did you fall out of the window and bang your head on the trottoir?
That reminds me, I went into the Scientology office in Tottenham Court Road, London, many years ago because they had “Jobs” advertised in the window and I was skint.
I chatted to the guy behind the desk and he said they had a job for me in their HQ in East Grinstead and they were ready to drive me down there to start immediately, I just had to have an interview with a senior guy.
He showed up after a few minutes and we went into a very small broom-cupboard room and sat down really close up. Straightaway he said:
“Have you ever taken Angel Dust or LSD?”
I replied, “Yes.”
He terminated the interview there and then and said that there weren’t any jobs available. I left.
Those guys are mad as a sack of ferrets.
No, Frank, never was a “Scientologist”, as you call it.
Yes, these people, when in business, are ruthless in a Machiavellian way and in that area where I was living at that time had a prosperous business running, looking for guinea pigs for theit products – in out and the neighbouring house and for followers of their indeed mad, so to say.
Up to then, before, I was known as a sannyasin by my sannyas name; the climate had been in a Bavarian friendly way: live and let live…friendly indifference, one can say.
Our beautiful Osho Mediataion Centre in town had to close at the end of the nineties as we couldn´t hold the place financially. I had been there on a daily basis to join the silent evening meditation.
Well, there would be much more to say, but at the moment will leave it like that, as my uproar against some business strategies of this firm had quite very traumatic consequences for me (up to the present day, btw).
What I gained out of this time has been very deep insights about fanatics and sects and cults of any kind – and a further investigation including looking into the mirror regarding such madness.
If I hadn´t had and have this inner connection with Osho I would not have survived these years (more than three years in these decades I lived as a homeless woman in this obscenely rich city) and had to discover as well that sannyasins I knew and whom I asked for a sleeping place didn´t offer one.
Buddhists I knew did, and I thoroughly learned in a fresh way to live ‘moment to moment’.
And if I hadn´t had the practice in Pune I, II and also, yes also, of the ´Ranch-time’ in the commune as a school of life and living I wouldn´t have survived that chapter.
Not to speak now of my ´bio-family´, so to say, as it has been (up to now) for them an insult that I left my career as a Psychologist etc. to join a cult (in their eyes).
It feels strangely wrong to shed these words and few lines about decades, the past, so to say, but can´t resist to do it.
Yes, you´re right, Frank. Scientologists appear “mad as a sack of ferrets”…but I came to know, when you´re going deeper, that ´they´ are not the only ones´- ANY cultish behaviour, including ours as sannyasins or Buddhists too, are in danger to develop such traits. (I knew that before Ganga´s pontification).
On the Ranch, where I became friends with an old Jungian fellow-traveller, I spoke about what Jung once said: ´If there is something wrong with society there´s something wrong with me too.” We were friends on the Ranch and I met others of his calibre; that´s not the only reason I don´t like stupid, small roundabout gossip talk about the ´Ranch´ as such. Especially from those who have not been there. (Felt very at home with late Parmartha´s take on it!).
Need to finish now, Frank, I´m tired.
Thank you for your questio
Madhu
Thank you, Madhu, for this heartfelt sharing. And the insight once again: don’t judge a person before you have walked a mile in their shoes, or 3 years homeless for that matter!
I agree, Levina.
Although, Madhu, it’s still not clear what led to your ‘breakdown’ (if that’s the right word?). Did the collapse of the Ranch affect you so deeply that you became ‘dysfunctional’ (as it were) for years after? Did it re-stimulate early personal trauma, perhaps? What did your homeless situation involve – sleeping on the streets?
No, Satyadeva (at 11:33 am) – never slept on the ´streets here; some rare nights I´ve been sitting in my old rotten car near some bridge by the river.
I knew that my short summary of these very last decades was miunderstandable here and there.
I´ve been one, one can say, more of a ‘luxury’ homeless woman, the last nine months I was taken in – into a house dedicated to support homeless women, giving them shelter, who’d suffered domestic violence and/or stalking terror.
I´ve been self-paying guest and in my case it was not easy to cope with the social workers there (regarding my sannyas name and all kinds of prejudices..).
And I have been a self-paying guest in a cheap pension for quite a while, where I had to disappear sporadically to make place for football fan groups or other better paying people.
I lived and am still living on a pension, my mother before dying had obliged my brother to pay monthly from the family´s heritage.
He doesn´t like to do that, you bet!
Haven’t had a visit from him all this time.
All that and more belong to the ‘Acceptance Boulevard’ I mentioned.
And yes, all traumata have a long history channel, so to say; same could and can be said about those (on the Ranch and after) declaring their misuse of and expressed contempt about my personal life as some ´rightly done´ (executed!) affair.
If you can manage, Satyadeva, to deal with my notes without using a ´shrink´s vocabulary I would be grateful.
Madhu
P.S:
You know, dyfunction is quite often not a one-sided happening? That´s also what I learned by ´unlearning´. There have been good reasons; I loved Osho´s take on the ‘Psychology of the Buddhas’.
Which changed a lot re my previous professional career (as Psychologist) from the time I happened to meet the Master, so to say….
“And yes, all traumata have a long history channel, so to say; same could and can be said about those (on the Ranch and after) declaring their misuse of and expressed contempt about my personal life as some ´rightly done´ (executed!) affair.”
So you had sannyasin ‘enemies’ (as well, presumably, as friends) on the Ranch and after, Madhu? Who were these, ordinary residents/workers or ‘regime’ members? And why was this, do you think?
I would say, fighting with an organization is never a good idea.
It’s political and one’s own peace may get lost in it.
Yes, Satchit, true (at 8:08 am).
However, sometimes such is an inevitable happening, I guess, and then to investigate how peace is lost and striving to find ways to regain it, is quite valuable in my eyes (sometimes).
And: some of the inconvenient, noisy kind of ‘whistle blowing’ can be (not neccassarily always but sometimes) very good stuff, can’t it?
As I said at another corner, Rebelliousness always has its price.
Always.
(The last remark goes to the MODs too, if you don´t mind…).
Have a nice day, Satchit.
Madhu
MOD:
Madhu, please clarify what you said to us (in brackets) just above.
Madhu says:
“Rebelliousness always has its price.”
Sorry, Madhu, if I have understood Osho rightly, he makes a distinction between a rebel and a revolutionary.
A whistleblower wants to change something on the outside and is a revolutionary.
A rebel trusts his inner voice.
Have a nice day too.
Weather: Cloudy in Munich
Satchit,
What if your inner voice tells you to blow a whistle?
@ MODs refering to one of my spelling/writing mistakes days ago – where I mixed uo ‘prize’ ( re rebelliousness) with `price´, the better word which you rightly recommended.
If inner voice tells me to blow a whistle, then whistle comes from no-mind.
Ah, but therein lie many pitfalls for the unwary, Satchit!
Pitfalls are needed for growth, SD!
And bland, common or garden cliches are useful to brush away potentially tricky questions, as you seem to know well, Satchit!
SD,
Do you think so?
Personally, I find that pretty much any of life`s problems can be solved with a `Peanuts` cartoon one-liner, a quote for the day homily from the Osho Times, or an advaita catch phrase.
The mind loves complicating things.
I agree, Frank.
It’s Satchit’s one-liners I don’t trust!
Re the “inner voice”, well, for example, how many times have I seen people, myself included) blowing their cash on a loser when following their “feeling”, ‘the intuitive voice within’ in a bookmaker’s premises, a shop or online?!
SD, if you call it a cliche it’s your problem, not mine.
I suggest you read this old parable of the ‘farmer and the wheat’ again.
Maybe it helps you for understanding.
I notice, Satchit, that you often resort to one-liners, to psycho-spiritual cliches. The point I was making is that one can fool oneself into thinking impulses etc. are authentically from ‘no-mind’, so much care, awareness, maturity is needed to fine-tune discernment in such cases.
You claim, “If inner voice tells me to blow a whistle, then whistle comes from no-mind.”
Really? In every circumstance? Perhaps you, like nearly everyone, has many ‘inner voices’, and perhaps you’re as driven by unconscious emotion as any other ordinary person.
Or perhaps the “inner voice” – if truly authentic – says one thing, but then you ‘blow the whistle’ in an inauthentic, self-defeating way!
There are always exceptions of course – maybe you’re one? But I have my doubts you’re as ‘special’ as you seem to believe.
No idea, btw, about the farmer and his wheat. Maybe you’d like to write an article about him?
SD, you take me too seriously.
The inner voice is not a voice.
The farmer and the wheat crop.
God loves one-liners.
Ah yes, but who or what doesn’t God Love?!
God loves everyone…
https://youtu.be/K8yzeRZMtj8
SD, the inner voice is not greedy for success.
Winning or losing is the same for Her!
Even when it calls on you to ‘blow your whistle’, Satchit? I bow down to your ‘detachment’, sir!
@SD 20 November, 2019 at 3:38 pm
I detect a note of world-weary ruefulness in your voice in this post, SD. A hint of subtext saying, “Bugger!!! I must stop doing that!!!”
You’re right, although I already have, quite a while ago, Arps.
@satyadeva 21 November, 2019 at 11:46 am
Never got the gambling bug, but I did come to realise what a risk-taker and gambler I was in other ways, as I regularly jumped off metaphorical cliffs over the years; so, for example, I walked out on almost everything I owned and was identified with, that being immediate possessions and places and people, at the end of’ 83, which paid off big-time.
I found renewal, and by 1997 the basic possessions had come back, but without the identification, and that just happened, with minimal pre=planning; plus I was free of social situations with which I had identified and needed to drop.
Gambling! Now that is close to home. I have always enjoyed gambling. I first played poker in a casino when I was 15 and have never really stopped. My current vice is Texas Hold ‘Em. Played in a tournament last night. Lost the lot on a full house…sevens and sixes…got beat by a full house sevens and eights. Can’t win ‘em all.
Biggest I ever lost was 70,000 euros in a stupid gamble. Had a period where I played a lot of roulette…bit of a mug’s game, but last time in Vegas I hit it lucky one night in the Luxor and paid for my whole trip plus expenses with change left over. I always thought that the roulette wheel in a casino was the hub of our rotten society.
Winning or losing makes a difference to me. I hate losing! Show me a good loser, and I will show you a good loser. Only losers win in this game. Who said that?
Only one of the very few times I have ever gambled I`ve gone on a winning streak: It was at the Bingo.
First full house I won free drinks. Second full house I won a bottle of bubbly. Third, I won a bottle of Vodka!
43 I was down on my knees 74 I hit the floor…The last I remember was being taken home by two fat ladies!
I won £50 on the Grand National* when I was nineteen, but fortunately for me, my sense of self-preservation prevented me going further.
A kid who worked backstage was an an avid gambler on the gee gees^, and gave me and the boss the tip.
*”Grand National” – One of the two most famous horse races in the UK, featuring a very large number of horses jumping over high fences over a long distance.
^”the gee gees” – the horses!
I find in interesting to observe how I deal with losing. First wave is how the money lost multiplies when I think of all the things I could have better spent the money on. Worst I ever felt was losing a packet online when I really could not afford to lose. Felt shit for days and had to admit I had a problem.
Dear Madhu, thank you for your sharing.
Even for me, there have been difficult financial situations, overcome thanks to the spirit of adventure and the trust absorbed through Osho and his people, my people, you.
In those cases, after a few closed doors, the doors of my responsibility/discipline opened wide, and after some time I also recognized wisdom and compassion behind most of those closed doors.
If someone asked me for hospitality today, before I feel like inviting him/her, should I ask myself if he/she belongs to my sect or not?
No, other things would make the difference; for example, if it is a moral blackmail or if there is the possibility of an exchange (compatible with the needs and abilities of each) of some kind…that at bottom it is always an energy phenomenon, whether it is money or a smile, it is the shared perspective of how to place them that gives value to them.
For me, the really decisive one is if he/she is connected with the source of his abundance, if he/she is honest on this point, that nobody starts to pontificate starting from poverty (the same Catholic but upside-down shit of the Protestant ethic), because then any attempt on my part to try to compensate for his/her shortcomings would be an obstacle to a disciplined path towards personal power.
Yes, Frank, the Tottenham Court Road Scientologists – used to go in there when I was waiting to score to pass the time before my man from Lexington 125 showed up.
“One thing you learn is you always gotta wait.”
(Meditation Master Lu)
That’s a lot of reaction, Ganga,coming from a loving, silent mind.
Perfectly correct., Levina!
Certainly, Gagaji is reactively projecting negative unconscious judgmental judgments and mindstuff with lack of awareness from retarded pygmy belief systems of ego and noisy mind!
He must be immediately love-bombed from the heart by beloveds with wildfire of sannyas-cod-therapy clichés in order to bring about collective healing!
Love!
Yahoo!
Gagaji must be an intimate friend of yours, A.Y., seeing you care so much about him?
“Who is in ?”, Ganga – confronting me – and what a good question
(Quest) for all of us, including you.
Calling me “lobotomized”, “lobotomizing” and having a “cunning” stance here, recommending me ‘to piss off’ is quite strong stuff, isn´t it?
Sure enough, one did not need to wait too long here for support for your stance.
You´re thoroughly reminding me of a German native (female) well established group leader, going with the flow of ever-changing circumstances and conditions in those who are ´hungry´to lead a more balanced and more satisfying life.
I don´t doubt your love you are speaking of – and even if you contradict: I don´t doubt mine too.
Your feeling is – as you said – “that you want us to heal” (become whole). That´s right, Ganga, although I wouldn´t put it that way.
There is no such thing as ´my´ healing in contrast to yours; our healing is interwoven anyway and inter-dependrnt too as the whole of the rest of life conditioning.
If you are that ´Ganga´ I imagine you to be – or not – I trust that beautiful name of a river in this case. And I trust that you´re applying to yourself what you are recommending to others (like me).
Thank you, Ganga, for addressing me with that whole load of anger to swallow, and this special way to share your love as well with the whole bunch of people reading it.
Madhu
This is one rare solid post from Madhu.
Mr/Ms Ganga did a good job to bring out best of Madhu.
…
Beloved Swami Anand Anubodh,
That is beautiful.
What a wag you are.
I mean…
And….
CONTINUE TO BE REALISTIC:
WHEN YOU ENCOUNTER THIS MIRACLE,
DON’T ASK FOR PROOF, JUST ACCEPT IT!
(OSHO BOB)
And Miracles are like soap bubbles….
And:
Don´t you forget Mr Einstein here, playing with his soap bubbles in his bath tub, Shantam Prem:
Discovering Concept and Theory of ´Relativity…while playing with bubbles…
If he is a plumber now, as he was said to have expressed as a wish for next life, joking – who knows..?
And – IF – that entity of Intelligence IS a plumber right now, I imagine that he is a pretty efficient, good one!
And plumbers are needed. Plumbers of concepts too….
Madhu
Rememberd an ancient saying of deep psychological insight:
“Feed a slave, he will bite your fingers; kick him he will lick your feet.”
It is very true when people get identified with some saviour phantom:
Everyone is blamed, but not the special one.
P.S:
Above saying I have not mentioned for someone particular, it is just a common trait for consideration.
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.”
(Einstein)
I can google the difference and similarities between ‘Mysterious’ and ‘Miraculous’, still I will be glad to know this from the fellow-writers but without the help of dictionary.
In my opinion, mysterious is marvellous, miraculous is coincidence!
The winds of Change:
They too need rest
They too get tired from change.
@ Satyadeva (at 12:57 pm)
Here endeth (your own words), for the moment, writing responses to your hard-headed further interrogation, which is – by now – well known to me.
Maybe you satisfy your needs with Satchit based in Bavaria; there you can get a further pundits’ talk about ´my dyfunctionalism´ etc.
I´m exhausted just now and have shared here a lot of ´fodder’, as Shantam Prem was naming it…
Just one thing: Ever so often so amazed how people re-write their histories…convenient to their further life or career…And that´s not a bad skill. Don´t get me wrong here. Traumatized people – for the good or the bad – are not able to do that. They are ´stuck in sometimes ever-repetitive, very clear memories
And that has a good side too; as – what you didn´t digest so far stuff has to be on the plate to offer same-same up to the moment when the inner work is done.
The best that can happen in such a case, you give it a break sometimes to talk to the wrong people; and to listen inside to your own heart.
I´m going to have a rest (from writing), Satyadeva, Satchit too.
Madhu
Madhu, you choose to call it “hard-headed further interrogation”, as if I’m somehow putting you ‘on trial’. That’s actually not the case, I’m genuinely interested, as a fellow human being, in your trials and tribulations, as you’ve gone through a great deal of extreme adversity.
Hi Satyadeva (20 November 2019 at 2:03 pm),
(Bavarian?) Satchit – bringing in the story of a farmer and his wheat in your private-public little extra corner, you didn´t know about (?).
The story and its picture is part of the Osho ZEN-Tarot and its title is: ‘CHALLENGE (48)’.
It’s a parable of a farmer getting into discussion with God and complaining that God knows nothing about right farming, but claims he does.
So God is willing to get stuff in Nature done according to the farmer´s wishes for one year: No thunder, no storms, no lightning, no strong winds etc…
After that year, the wheat was gowing so high one coud not imagine, the farmer was very proud.
But when harvest-time came, the farmer found out that there was no wheat in the harvested crops. The wheat was impotent, so to say.
Challenge of all kinds of weather, metaphorically said – is needed – to shake up the soul of creation, the parable concludes….
There was a time I´ve been almost addicted (long ago) to playing with these ZEN Tarot cards. We also used to play with it in tea-break times, I remember).
Even in times of growing consciousness about climate change disasters and so on, it may be convenient to picture the metaphor a little bit changed, story-telling-wise.
Anyway, I almost completely dropped the use of that and other Tarots (and I still have many in the closet) for ‘counselling’ matters, but it was nice to be reminded of some innocent chatting in some Walt Whitman laundry trailor and more…long, long ago.
And helas, the parable has its value, to take in, also in the here-now Chat-room, doesn´t it?
Satyadeva, you say: “I´m genuinely interested as a fellow human being, in your trials and tribulations, as you´ve gone through a great deal of extreme adversity.”
Yes, I did and I do, Satyadeva, but our ways to deal with it are different, in my eye(s).
I confess I called you (secretly) an Ice-Prince. Here and there in the UK/SN Chat´s – ongoing-times – and meeting your responses sometimes thoroughly reminded me to look inside and feel my own frozen pain.
And thank you for this.
Madhu
P,S:
Do you remember that August 2014 Chat topic about “Therapy”?
And your exchange with Alan Lowen (aka Rajen) about late Michael (aka Somendra)?
I do.
These were very intense outer-inner topic-times for me too, still are, even when hardly recognizable any more – as times go by….
When someone dares to bare the inner, intimate, personal at public platform, it is surely an act of courage and trust.
Madhu has done this.
I hope it will open new, better chapter in her life.
There is a children’s song in Germany. Small children carry the paper made laltain and walk around together during one of these wintry days.
Main lines of their song always stay around me, make me feel part of one human race which has passed individually and collectively, innumerable trials and tribulations.
The following lines are for The Inner Child in all of us:
Immer wieder kommt ein neuer Frühling,
immer wieder kommt ein neuer März.
Immer wieder bringt er neue Blumen,
immer wieder Licht in unser Herz.
Again and again comes a new Spring,
again and again comes a new March.
Again and again he brings new Flowers,
again and again light in our Heart.
Here is a kind of miracle and it has nothing to do with coincidence. Guy parks his car outside a shopping mall in Nantes, France and comes back half an hour later to find a tree has grown through it with leaves tinted by autumn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkJ9ZP3C1Sw
Aaah, this ‘makes a day´; thank you very much for sharing, Lokesh!
These French Artists really deserve more than a ‘scrapping reward’* for replacing (transmuting/ transforming) their old Renault (from 1997 – as some commenters were bragging about) with roots of the tree accurately and sensitively placed on the driver´s seat.
Vive la France! (In this case),
Madhu
*’scrapping reward’ – A payment made in Germany to people who send their old car for recycling when buying a new one.
Have you seen the vid of what happened next?
Apparently, a plumber fell out of the tree, banged his head and become possessed by a disembodied Tibetan Lama.
Whosoever “banged his head”, few hours ago, is not quite clear, dear Frank.
But “freedom is another word for nothing left to lose”…Besides, losing the head is preferable, especially in Digital Time, chatting into oblivion…
Some may call it ´Himalayas´, some may not….
Looking forward to what comes out of it. (Here).
Sincerely,
Madhu
P.S:
Prefer the NOW in the HERE – feels more sane….
“Whosoever “banged his head”, few hours ago, is not quite clear.”
I thought the plumber who fell out the tree and banged his head might be the reincarnation of Einstein, but I checked the Akashik records and it turns out he was actually reborn as a loved-up trance DJ called MC E.
Probably still a bit of a headbanger,tho`.
Frank. Whimsy!!! Flippin’ ‘eck!!!!!
Wow! Be prepared….
Ehm….
Won´t it be “winds of change” when named changed westerns change back to their original face, original name. They are anyway back to the roots.
I am sure, in future some Indian master will again change the names of his disciples, but this time to western names. For example, Mohan becomes Mike, Sarla becomes Susy.
Giving Indian names to Indians has not worked much; giving Indian names to westerns has made them corrupt and double-tongued, the way Indian elites are.
Names are not names, they transmit cultural and social baggage too.
Beloved Stephen,
Thank you for your loving post. Master finds it most interesting, full of wind. And so do we.
The message is to carry on with the meditation. And you will find even deeper insights will simply happen. Not through thinking, but from another, very windy place…
Just like that!
Perfectly correct, Shantambhai!
Certainly, Swami Bhorat will be following idea of giving western names to indian disciples.
He sends news that your new name is: Wayne Carr!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!